Egypt Steps Up HIV Arrests

I’m surprised that this article hasn’t made way more headlines around the world.

Looks like Egypt is taking a page out of the Mike Huckabee playbook and trying to quarantine it’s HIV-positive population.

Police denied making any HIV-related arrests but one police official speaking on condition of anonymity said there is a campaign to get persons registered in hospital records as HIV-positive into treatment in “special clinics.” The official said he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The sheer fact that the government is using what should be confidential medical records to hunt people down is shocking enough. But also, that these people are getting arrested to be interned in “special clinics”. To me that sounds a bit terrifying, because I know I sure never want to be sent to a “special clinic” against my will.

This is not to say that Huckabee is behind this (because he obviously is not), but the 1992-era Mike Huckabee sounds like he would have supported an action like this. In a questionnaire done by the Associated Press, Huckabee stated that

In 1992, Huckabee wrote, “If the federal government is truly serious about doing something with the AIDS virus, we need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague.”

“It is difficult to understand the public policy towards AIDS. It is the first time in the history of civilization in which the carriers of a genuine plague have not been isolated from the general population, and in which this deadly disease for which there is no cure is being treated as a civil rights issue instead of the true health crisis it represents.” – Source

That’s also a pretty shocking statement, but the fact that now, 16 years later, Egypt has decided to do something like that really messes with my head. You’d think in an age where we know significantly more about the disease and how it spreads, we could at least treat those who suffer from it with a little dignity.

I sure hope that someone steps in to at least raise a bit of a protest at this human rights abuse. Any takers? UN? I’m looking in your direction.